A GOOD AGE: Building 'stepping stones' for granddaughter Stella

Tuesday

Aug 19, 2014 at 5:00 AMAug 19, 2014 at 8:24 AM

Jack Banda of Marshfield watched his daughter, Nicole Puzzo, struggle to carry his granddaughter, Stella, onto the beach. Stella, now four, has cerebral palsy. A retired engineer, Banda designed a child-size “beach buggy” for Stella that has proven so popular he and a friend, Michael Panarelli, have now built 27 beach buggies for other families.

Sue Scheible The Patriot Ledger @sues_ledger

MARSHFIELD – The story begins two years ago, with Jack Banda watching his daughter, Nicole Puzzo, struggle to carry her youngest daughter, Stella, onto the beach. Stella, now four, has cerebral palsy and it was a difficult transport.

“I wanted to help; I thought, ‘What can I do? There’s isn’t much I can do,’ ” he recalled.

A trip to Florida planted the seeds to a solution. Banda, 72, and his wife, Lauralee, saw large beach transport chairs used by adults in that state. “We can make a ‘kid one’,” Banda said.

Working with a bathtub seat he already had made for Stella, Banda took pieces of PVC piping, some metal parts and designed and built a child’s version of the adult transport chair, which he calls the “beach buggy.” That first one, two years ago, was pink, just as Stella wanted.

She used it for about a year to play with her sister, Chloe, now seven, at the beach in Swampscott where the Puzzos live. It worked so well that the staff and other families at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, where Stella goes, wondered if they could get one also.

So Banda began making more, in a workshop above his garage in Pudding Hill. He drafted his neighbor, Michael Panarelli, a retired sheet metal worker, to help him. When Banda went off on a vacation, Panarelli had a stack of cut pipes waiting when he came home. They cut some more, began assembling them and so far have made 27 beach buggies and shipped them out to families across the country. Recently requests came in from families in Ireland and Canada.

Word had spread quickly after Nicole “Nikki” Puzzo, 41, a 1991 graduate if Norwell High School, formed a nonprofit organization, Stepping Stones For Stella, to help other children and their families. She put together a board of directors, filed papers for nonprofit status, contacted corporations for sponsors. “I was really impressed to see how she handled it,” Banda said. “I didn’t know she could do all that.”

The beach buggies are provided without charge, but families have to qualify by filling out paperwork and a physical therapist must certify the need.

Banda was able to move quickly on this unexpected retirement project because he had worked for a manufacturing corporation in several different roles. He describes himself as “a hands-on engineering person.”

Panarelli, with his metal working skills, has been an ideal helper. “I’m always looking for little projects to do and once I got involved, it was a ‘no-brainer’ to continue,” he said.

The current buggies are yellow. Lauralee Banda calls them “the Cadillac version.” Banda designed them with pneumatic air-filled wheels, so they flex when going over uneven terrain like sand. The wheels also come off the stainless steel shafting, for easier car transport.

“You can pull the buggy apart, so you can fit it in the back of a car,” Banda said as he demonstrated in his driveway.

Four of the beach buggies were donated to Spaulding, where patients can use them and get information on how to order one.

Stories have come back from grateful families who have received the buggies and Banda has been touched by them all.

“The buggies have been life-changing for a lot of the people,” he said. Parents and grandparents like the Bandas finally have a way of getting their children onto the beach during the summer, to play and splash and have the kind of childhood experiences others enjoy.

One family in the Midwest even used their’s in the snow.

“I am just so grateful to my Dad, because we wouldn’t be here without him,” Puzzo said. “He has done so much.” She is reaching out to corporations for funding and so far has paid for the donated buggies through grass-roots fund raisers. The next event is Sept. 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sterlings in Faneuil Hall in Boston. The web site lists the events.

For more information, visit the Stepping Stones For Stella website at steppingstonesforstella.org. Puzzo can be reached at 617-785-0076.

Sue Scheible is a staff reporter for The Patriot Ledger who writes a weekly column, A Good Age, about life after 50. In her blog, she shares extra anecdotes about the people she meets, readers' e-mails, videos, photos and phone messages, and ideas for what to do in retirement or to prepare for retirement. Read more of her columns. Read the blog.